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Forget Personal Branding: What a 19th-Century Philosopher Can Tell Us About Great Content
How many philosophers do you read for fun? How about for advice on writing for the internet?
Most of the writers that I read for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees were focused on specific academic puzzles. Back then, as a philosophy student that wanted to teach, I devoured every book I could get my hands on.
Now, as a “civilian” working in content marketing, I mostly read for fun and growth: I dive into fantasy and horror fiction for fun, nonfiction writing and strategy books to get better at my craft, and the occasional parenting, cooking, or spirituality book to explore something new in my personal life.
The rest of my library—packed with classics of the Western canon—just feels too abstract and distant from my life these days. It’s not fair to some great books, but it’s hard to bring myself to crack the covers sometimes.
There is, however, one philosopher I still read, and I think you should too: The “Sage of Concord” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Even though he was writing more than a century before the birth of the internet, Emerson’s essays about character and life have a lot to tell us about writing great content.
The Problem of Large-scale Perfectionism
If you’re in the early stages of your career, or you’re a content creator who worries about personal branding, it’s easy to fall into a kind of big-picture decision paralysis.
“Wait, does this post fit into my brand? Will this help me get my next role, or should I work on this other thing instead? Is this the kind of creator I want to be? What if this wrecks my SEO?” And so on.
If that sounds familiar, here’s my advice for you, as one writer to another:
- Pat yourself on the back for being wise enough to think about your work with so much perspective.
- Stop that immediately.
Even if you can let go of the need to make every individual article, video, and post perfect, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to make everything perfect.
